Wednesday, March 23, 2016

Day four of the Lighthouse ArtCenter Plein Air Festival, and I must admit that by this time I'm tired. During a short festival like this one I tend to paint from dawn to dusk. I was looking for a nice shady spot to relax and paint, and we found it while exploring DuBois and Jupiter Beach Parks. There's a beautiful lagoon between the two parks, and I found a spot on the sandy shore with a view of this tree with a trunk on fire with color from the sun hitting it just right.

It was perfect. Warm breezes, but not too windy because I was down low and protected by other trees. The painting came together very fast, and that's always a good thing.

Sometimes I don't know when I'm finished, but this morning was an exception. Suddenly, my entire easel started to tilt to the left. I looked down to find that the tide had risen and the shore was not underneath the easel. The left leg was rapidly sinking into the soft wet sand. Time to call it - perfect timing.

There was a lot more beach when I started. Both the shade of the trees and the waterline moved fast.